Somebody once said that the past never leaves you. Take it from me, guys and gals; somebody wasn’t lying through his teeth. You might bury the shit in your past as deep as you possibly can, and place a tombstone on top to ensure the completion of the burial, but one way or the other, it’s gonna slide its filthy tentacles outta the grave to enclose you in its slimy grip.
When my parents separated, I clung to a vague belief that it was only temporary, and that one day things would be fine again. That belief was shattered when I learnt they were legally divorced. But I was…what, five?...at that time, and grew up promising myself I’d one day unite them, which was a beautiful dream until we, that is my mom and me, learnt that my father had remarried and had a kid from his second marriage.
I had a sister!
Half-sister, my mom never failed to remind me. Step-sister.
The separation was complete when mom married my step-dad in ’96. Game over, case closed, zip up your fly.
Or not.
Dad, who used to visit us occasionally, stopped doing that after mom married step-dad. Understandable. But I couldn’t let go. I kept missing him, wrote and called him at times, without my step-dad’s knowledge, of course.
That stopped gradually, as I tried to subtract from my life the memories, the ever-present influence of the man who had given me life, and then done his best to ruin it. I couldn’t. Maybe I was weak. Maybe I’m still weak.
Life was hell. I was trying to burn the bridges between dad and me on one hand, and trying to bridge the gap between step-dad and me on the other, who I desperately wanted to accept so that my life could be complete again. I was a fool.
I saw dad next when, after a disagreement, I ran away from the place I still continue to call my home. After spending one of the loneliest nights of my life on the streets, I went to dad. I knew he would understand. And he did. Sometimes, I think he was the only one who really understood me. I spent a week with him before coming back.
The past reared its ugly head once again last week, when after my exams, my mom and I went on a long overdue vacation. A mother-and-son thing. She told me some more things about him. Things I hadn’t known before, and which I could have done without knowing.
She also told me he was dead.
My father died four years ago after a short illness, which was the last time i saw him, sick and feeble on the hospital bed. How and when exactly, I don’t know. But he’s been gone the last four years, and nobody thought I deserved to know. And now he’s no more, leaving so many questions unanswered, so many things unsaid.
And I don’t really know how to react.
The past week offered little opportunity to sit and think. But now that I have the time on my hands to think about it, it’s slowly sinking in. He’s gone. He’s no more. He’s dead.
I feel an irrational sense of betrayal. I feel immense grief. I feel so lonely. And so angry at the way I was kept in the dark about this for four years.
And I realize that I’d never really succeeded in forgetting him.
Now that he’s gone, I wonder if I’ll finally be able to free myself. Sometimes, I wonder if I’ll ever be free of his memories, his influence.
